Southern Baptists on the Council for National Policy

I've been busy doing some research for a workshop on "Who's Who in the Religious Right" that I will be leading at the National Mainstream Convocation in Richmond, VA later this week.

A little closer look at the roster of people who have been members of the Council for National Policy disclosed more Southern Baptists than I had previously realized. Here's a brief description of the Council for National Policy and a list of the Southern Baptists who have been members:

In 1981 Tim LaHaye left the pastorate and founded the secretive Council for National Policy (CNP) -- an exclusive conservative Christian lobbying group that meets three times a year. It brings influential conservative Christian leaders together behind closed doors with America's most powerful conservative politicians, journalists, lawyers, and industrialists to strategize about politics and public policy. Start-up funds came from Cullen Davis and Nelson Bunker Hunt. Membership is by invitation only and annual dues are several thousand dollars. Guests attend meetings only with the unanimous approval of the executive committee. The membership list is a Who's Who of the Religious Right and of the politicians pushing their agenda. Southern Baptists who are members include Paul Pressler, who was president of their Executive Committee 1988-90 and in 1994; Paul Pressler IV (his son), Paige Patterson, Ed McAteer (Religious Roundtable), James Robison, Jay Strack, Jerry Falwell, and Rick Scarborough (Vision America), Coy Privette (served as a trustee at Southeastern Seminary), Alan Sears (President and CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, served as a member of Executive Board of SBC), Ann Frazier (from North Carolina, served as a NAMB Trustee), Robbie Hughes (from Mississippi, served as member of SBC Public Affairs Committee) Andrew Lester (layman at FBC OKC), Lawson Ridgeway (deacon at FBC Dallas), Dal Shealy (1998 President/CEO Fellowship of Christian Athletes, deacon FBC Kansas City, MO, served on the board of trustees Carson-Newman College), Jim R. Smith (deacon at Second Baptist Houston, served as board member and executive committee member at Houston Baptist University), Steve Stockman (former U.S. Congressman, member FBC Houston).

On Practices Prosecutable as Torture

The Washington Post reports that the Senior Lawyer at Pentagon Broke Ranks on Detainees.

Conscientious people don't give up their careers lightly. They give them up when they are asked to do something that would keep them from being able to look at themselves in a mirror.

Those who can approve torture and still look at themselves in a mirror have no conscience.

Politicians Asking for Church Directories, Again

Saturday's Wahington Post carried a story about the GOP in North Carolina asking for church directories.

Republicans are not alone in asking for church directories. A couple years ago I heard a Democrat running for the state legislature in Oklahoma ask for church directories. When people complained, he insisted that he could not compete unless he could communicate as effectively as his opponent.

That the North Carolina GOP itself, and not an individual politician, is asking for church directories may be a sign of looming power struggles within the GOP. In the past, Republican politicians were content to let right-wing preachers communicate the GOP's message to their parishoners. Now they want to communicate it themselves.

Since the supreme court has been stacked, perhaps Republican politicians are beginning to worry about the rest of the theocratic and Dominionist agenda being pushed by the preachers that they have been courting for three decades.

On Faith-Based Funding

Legislation is being offered at the state capital in Oklahoma that would opnely begin distributing state money to faith-based organizations. In the past, the office of faith-based initiatives has contended that all the money distributed to such organizations was federal money.

Oklahoma has fairly strong prohibitions against distributing government money to religious groups in its state constitution. Here's what it says (with emphasis added),

Section II-5: Public Money or Property -- Use for Sectarian Purposes.

"No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian institution as such."

Legislation now being considered would give money to the Oklahoma Office of Faith-based Initiatives to distribute to faith-groups that will work with Prison Fellowship to rehabilitate criminals. The legislation is also supposed to hold recipients of the funding accountable for demonstrating successful results.

We've heard about programs like this before. In fact, Americans United has just sued the State of Iowa for distributing government funds to Prison Fellowship for a prison-wing that it operates at a prison in Davenport, Iowa. That program boasted successful results. Critics contend that the results were skewed to give it the appearance of success when, in reality, recidivism by all participants within its program were worse than for a control group.

Here's an essay I wrote about the case a few months ago. Here's a link to an article about that describes the allegorical nature of Prison Fellowship's defense of their uniquely "Christian" influence on the Iowa inmates. Here's a link to a blog that has a lot of links to information about other problems with faith-based funding. The picture posted above, which is worth much more than a thousand words, was borrowed from that blog.

(Thanks to Robert Cunningham for calling my attention to these last two links)

Both SBC Mission Boards Under Fire

Just as leadership at the Southern Baptist Convention's Internation Mission Board has agreed to withdraw its request that the Convention remove blogging Trustee Wade Burleson from its board, the North American Mission Board is being roundly criticised by the editor of a fundamentalist dominated state newspaper.

Open criticism of the Southern Baptist Convention agencies and its leadership has been rare for since two editors of Baptist Press were terminated in the late 1980's.

It looks like the iron-fisted takeover leaders are either losing some control or are relaxing their grip on power in the Convention.

Kudos to Wade Burleson for successfully facing the IMB leadership down.

A National Disgrace

Reuters is reporting that the UN has issued a report that condemns the U.S. for torturing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and calls on us to close the prison.

Close the prison.

This is a national disgrace.

The country I lived in six years ago would not condone such activities.

The country I live in today bears little resemblance to the country that was founded on the recognition of the "inalienable rights" of humanity.

Toward a Dialogue of Civilizations

Kudos to the National Council of Churches in calling for a "Dialogue of Civilizations."

We've heard enough from people in the current administration and throughout the world who are interested in fueling a "Clash of Civilizations."

In times like these, faithful Christians will work for peace. Crusaders will stoke the embers of war.

On Dreisbach's Jefferson

I read Daniel Dreisbach's Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State over the last few days. The book is a storehouse of information related to Jefferson's metaphor in his letter to Danbury Baptists about the first amendment "building a wall of separation between church and state." The author, however, has little regard for the metaphor as a principle of jurisprudence and he demonstrates an eagerness to offer strained interpretations of the material to discredit the principle.

A prime example of this straining is found in his explanations of Jefferson's opposition to Thanksgiving day proclamations. As President, Jefferson refused to designate days for public fasting, thanksgiving, and prayer as had his predecessors in office, Washington and Adams. Jefferson initially understood his letter to the Danbury Baptists to be an opportunity to publicly explain his opposition to governments prescribing acts of religious piety. Language to that effect was prominent in the first draft of the letter to Danbury Baptists.

On the recommendation of his Attorney General, Levi Lincoln, Jefferson removed a sentence that identified proclamations of fasts and thanksgivings with the practices of "the Executive of another nation as the legal head of the church," i.e. by the despised English King George III. Lincoln advised him that performances of religious devotion were "venerable" practices both in his own Republican party and in the opposition Federalist party. Jefferson removed that sentence for political reasons -- not because he had a change of heart.

Dreisbach does his best to make it appear that Jefferson's opinion about governments issuing proclamations for "performances of devotion" was ambiguous. He cites proclamations that Jefferson signed while governor of Virginia as proof that Jefferson approved the mandating of religious exercises by state magistrates. Proclamations and Notices that Jefferson signed while Virginia was under English rule (1774), however, hardly serves as credible evidence for what Jefferson believed proper for the governing of states in a new nation. Proclamations that he signed as Virginia's Governor after independence (1779), but before the legislature had enacted his Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (submitted in 1779, enacted in 1785), are equally suspect.

In reality, after the Constitution and First Amendment were passed (1789), Jefferson's first draft of his letter to Danbury Baptists (1802) is the best evidence we have of Jefferson's deepest convictions about the proper relation between religion and government. He believed the First Amendment prohibited the President and Congress from any action that would establish religion and its practices. He hoped his letter would "sow useful truths & principles among the people, which might germinate and become rooted among their political tenents."

If Dreisbach were merely insisting that Jefferson was an advocate for states rights and that he understood the Constitution to apply only to the federal government and not to the states, he would merely be restating an undisputed truth. Dreisbach is suggesting more. He's trying to leave the impression that Jefferson advocated for the establishment of religion by the states -- which he most certainly did not. On the contrary, he was planting seeds that he hoped would encourage disestablishment of all the colonial establishments of churches. By 1833 his seeds had born fruit and all of the states had disestablished their churches.

To understand Jefferson's deepest convictions about separation of church and state, all you have to do is look at the legislation he authored for Virginia after the war for independence. It was a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom -- not for establishing a state church. That bill along with his authoring the Declaration of Independence and the founding of Virginia College comprise the legacy for which he was most proud and wanted to be remembered.

On the Rise of the Christocrats

Buzzflash has posted an interview with Rabbi James Rudin, author of The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right's Plans for the Rest of Us. Rudin uses the term "Christocrats" to distinguish evangelicals who believe in church/state separation from Dominionists and Christian Nationalists. Here's quote:

I use the concept of "deed, not the creed." Millions of our fellow American citizens are theologically conservative Christians. But they're not all actively seeking laws passed specifically on issues of church and state.

We can judge people by their deeds. The Christocrats' deeds are really an attack on public schools, on libraries, and the media. They attack the existing structures and then try to have them replaced with Christocratic libraries, Christocratic public schools or academies, or Christocratic media. It's kind of a shadow library, shadow schools, shadow everything. That's the strategy - to destroy the existing structure, or discredit it, and then try to replace it - using federal, state or local public money to support their schools or their unique libraries. They've also tried to create a parallel media system of television, radio, magazines, newspapers, which reflect their point of view.

After 200 years of American history, it is an attempt to make this into, not just a country where 82% of the population say they're Christians, but instead to make America into a Christian nation in terms of its laws.

Increasingly as I walk the halls of the state capitols in Texas and Oklahoma and at the nation's capitol in Washington, D.C., I find discerning Christians shaking their heads in disbelief at the legislation that is being introduced and passed by the "Christocrats" that are in control of those legislative bodies.

On Piety in Politics

Thanks to Robert Cunningham for sending me the link to Robert Flynn's blog about "The Most Famous Christian of the 20th Century."

Flynn has a whole list of quotations from the most famous Christian politician of the 20th Century. Here are a couple things that stood out to me:

His blending of church and state: "National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity? For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of today, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life?These are Christian principles!" (August 1934)

His God-given mission to cleanse Germany of evil as personified by the Jews, liberals, homosexuals, labor leaders, homeless people, immigrants from inferior cultures, and the weak and sick. "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." And, "We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press -- in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess." (March 1936)

Whither Employment?

John Paul Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and former Associate Editor of the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, explains why recent college graduates are having such a difficult time finding a job.

Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities--primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government.

US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.

The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a super-economy that is "the envy of the world." Communications equipment lost 43% of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37% of its workforce. The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30%. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its employees. The workforce in motor vehicles and parts declined 12%. Furniture and related products lost 17% of its jobs. Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile mills declined 43%. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15%. Even manufacturers of beverages and tobacco products experienced a 7% shrinkage in jobs.

The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost manufacturing jobs in the globalized "new economy" never appeared. The information sector lost 17% of its jobs, with the telecommunications work force declining by 25%. Even wholesale and retail trade lost jobs. Despite massive new accounting burdens imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley, accounting and bookkeeping employment shrank by 4%. Computer systems design and related lost 9% of its jobs. Today there are 209,000 fewer managerial and supervisory jobs than 5 years ago.

In five years the US economy only created 70,000 jobs in architecture and engineering, many of which are clerical. Little wonder engineering enrollments are shrinking. There are no jobs for graduates. The talk about engineering shortages is absolute ignorance. There are several hundred thousand American engineers who are unemployed and have been for years. No student wants a degree that is nothing but a ticket to a soup line. Many engineers have written to me that they cannot even get Wal-Mart jobs because their education makes them over-qualified.

What Roberts says rings true at my house. Both of my children have graduated from college in the last five years. Neither of them found gainful employment easily. Neither of them are employed in the field for which they earned their degree.

Phil Strickland Promoted

Phil Strickland, Director of the Christian Life Commission for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has passed away after a long battle with cancer.

Phil was a good friend to moderate, mainstream Baptists. He was a tireless champion for human rights, an articulate advocate for the hungry and the poor, a faithful mentor of historic Baptist principles, and a staunch supporter of church/state separation.

In Baptist life, few have been as influential and effective as he was in his advocacy for social justice. The Christian love that he demonstrated throughout his life leaves a long legacy.

On the Air Force and Spiritual Rape

Roger Williams fled the persecutions of Anglican Archbishop William Laud and landed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631. Shortly after his arrival he was banished from the colony for telling the authorities that they "cannot without a spiritual rape force the consciences of all to one worship."

Williams made his way to Rhode Island where he founded the first Baptist church in America and obtained the first charter in the history of the world that secured "a free, full and absolute liberty of conscience" for all the citizens of his colony.

John Locke read Williams writings and found inspiration to write A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). Williams insisted that there should be "a hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world." Locke contended that

"Whencesoever their authority (the clergy's) be sprung, since it is ecclesiastical, it ought to be confined within the bounds of the church, nor can it in any manner be extended to civil affairs, because the church itself is a thing absolutely separate and distinct from the commonwealth. The boundaries on both sides are fixed and immoveable."

Locke's letter exerted considerable influence on the thought of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others who founded a new nation on the American continent.

Traces of the language on liberty of conscience from Williams' charter for Rhode Island can be found in Jefferson's Act for Establishing Religious Liberty (1779) and Jefferson's insistence that the First Amendment erected a "wall of separation between church and state" (1802) is an echo of Williams'"hedge or wall of separation" metaphor. In 1819 Madison commented on the First Amendment saying that

"The number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, & the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of Church from the State."

It should be fairly clear to anyone genuinely interested in discovering the intentions of those who founded our Constitutional Republic that they meant to prohibit anyone, lay or clergy, from using government authority to bully people into faith and worship.

I doubt that Thomas Jefferson or James Madison would have any trouble deciding whether Air Force Brig. General Johnny Weida and others at the Air Force Academy have violated the Constitution and abused the powers of their offices by attempting to exert undue influence over the consciences of cadets under their authority. Roger Williams would surely accuse them of attempted "spiritual rape."

In August 2005 it looked like the Air Force might put an end to the spiritual abuse at the Academy. Lt. Gen. Robert A. Brady issued four pages of guidelines that appeared to be a step back toward the principle of separation of church and state. At that time, Rob Boston wrote an official blog for Americans United that said,

Americans United says the guidelines are not perfect. A section on the uses of "non-sectarian" prayer is vague, and the document spells out no sanctions for those who violate it. Still, AU welcomed the guidelines as an important step toward increasing religious tolerance in the military.

On February 9, 2006 the Air Force issued a single page revised guideline that is clearly a step away from separation of church and state. Obviously, the Religious Right's lawyers for the defense of spiritual rape and conscience abuse have been at work. As the latest Americans United Press Release notes:

In the first set of guidelines, the Air Force stressed that, "Chaplains are commissioned to provide ministry to those of their own faiths, to facilitate ministry to those of other faiths, and to provide care for all service members, including those who claim no religious faith."

The revised guidelines dated Feb. 6 contain no such language. Instead they declare that the Air Force "will respect the rights of chaplains to adhere to the tenets of their religious faiths and they will not be required to participate in religious activities, including public prayer, inconsistent with their faiths."

Lynn noted, "It is shocking that there is no similar provision for regular Air Force personnel who do not wish to participate in prayer or other religious activities."

If the Air Force's new interpretation of the First Amendment prevails, by 2031 America may once again be governed by the same system of theocratic law that banished Roger Williams from Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Technorati Tags Air Force, spiritual rape, church and state, Americans United, chaplains, conscience abuse, religious liberty, Roger Williams, First Amendment

On Mean Cities

The National Coalition for the Homeless recently issued a report about American cities criminalizing homelessness. They rank cities around the country according to how harshly they treat the homeless.

Sarasota, Florida ranked as the meanest city in America in the way they treat the homeless. Lawrence, Kansas ranked second. Little Rock, Arkansas (last year's meanest city) is now America's third meanest city. Texas ranks as the meanest state in the union with four cities on the list -- Dallas ranked sixth, Houston seventh, San Antonio thirteenth, and Austin was fifteenth.

There are a lot of Baptists in all these cities. We need to start taking an interest in the homeless people in the cities in which we live. As the Apostle John wrote,

If any one has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3: 17-18

Click here for a link to the NCH's full report. Click here for narrative about the meanest cities. Click here for narrative about how the homeless are treated in cities in your area.

On Double Standards for Violence

Jonathan Hutson has posted a revealing article about the double standard for violence that has been condoned by some Christians. The "Christian Communications Network" (CCN) has condemned Muslims for violence over inflammatory cartoons of Mohammed and posted the cartoons on its website.

Hutson says CCN is run by a "Christian" Activist who previously served as "a publicist, apologist and funding conduit for the unapologetically pro-violence wing of the anti-abortion movement."

Hypocritical double standards are not "Christian." Neither is violence. CCN needs to take the log out of its own eye before commenting on specks in the eyes of others.

Discrepancies in Gonzales Testimony Revealed

Buried in an article in today's Washington Post is information that indicates the testimony that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales gave the Senate Judiciary Committee conflicts with information given to the FISA court judges. Here's a quote:

Shortly after the warrantless eavesdropping program began, then-NSA Director Michael V. Hayden and Ashcroft made clear in private meetings that the president wanted to detect possible terrorist activity before another attack. They also made clear that, in such a broad hunt for suspicious patterns and activities, the government could never meet the FISA court's probable-cause requirement, government officials said.

So it confused the FISA court judges when, in their recent public defense of the program, Hayden and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that NSA analysts do not listen to calls unless they have a reasonable belief that someone with a known link to terrorism is on one end of the call. At a hearing Monday, Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the "reasonable belief" standard is merely the "probable cause" standard by another name.

It appears that the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee had reasons for refusing to put Gonzales under oath. This administration is telling the gullible public one thing, and the FISA judges something else.

Drums Beating for War with Iran

Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern has a revealing article published at Truthout titled, "Juggernaut Gathering Momentum, Headed for Iran."

As moderate Christians ask probing questions about the success of the war in Iraq and cross-examine its "just war" rationale, the administration appears to be preparing to shift attention from its failures in Iraq by launching a war with Iraq.

Government Intimidating Witnesses Against Torture

The Common Dreams newswire reports that seven members of a group called "Witness Against Torture" have been served papers by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for attempting to visit prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.

I suspect the OFAC is concerned that the group might have taken small amounts American currency to the Island of Cuba. What if they gave some to the prisoners at Guantanamo? Those prisoners were allegedly connected with Saddam Hussein's desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Since we launched our pre-emptive strike on Iraq, the whole world knows what happens to anyone who even think about wanting WMD's.

It's perfectly understandable why America can't let any of its currency fall into the wrong hands. We've had proof since the 1960's that Fidel Castro wanted to acquire WMD's and the missiles to deliver it.

Former President Carter Willing to Testify

Former President Jimmy Carter says this administration's domestic eavesdropping program is illegal. Here's a quote from an Associate Press story:

The former president said he would testify before the Judiciary Committee if asked.

"If my voice is important to point of the intent of the law that was passed when I was president, I know all about that because it was one of the most important decisions I had to make."

On Immunity from Perjury

The most important decision made at today's hearings at the Senate Judiciary Committee was that, in effect, the Attorney General of the United States is above the law and should be immunized from perjury as he testifies about the illegal wire tapping of American citizens that he authorized.

Here's a quote from the CNN report:

The hearing began with a sudden and sharp partisan dispute when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter ruled that Gonzales did not have to be sworn in to testify. After Democrats strongly objected and demanded a roll-call vote, Republicans prevailed and the attorney general did not testify under oath.

If ordinary Americans have nothing to fear from the intrusions of privacy posed by NSA surveillance, why is Gonzales afraid to testify under oath?

If Gonzales was a Quaker, he could be excused from swearing an oath by giving a simple, legally binding affirmation to tell the truth. Quakers operate under the religious conviction that every word they speak must be truthful. Not just statements they make under oath.

Gonzales, however, is no Quaker. In all likelihood, he authorized the surveillance of law-abiding, truth-telling, peace-loving Quakers and now he wants an exemption from a legally binding requirement to tell the truth about it.

The deliberate mendacity of many of our legislators and the pre-meditated duplicity of key leaders in this administration is utterly contemptible.

Nothing is ever going to restore confidence in our government again until our leaders either become sincere Quakers themselves or are prepared to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when giving testimony.

Technorati Tags Alberto Gonzales, NSA, Civil Rights, surveillance, Quakers, Oaths, Perjury, Senate Judiciary Committee, National Security Agency

On People Who Won't Take "No" for an Answer

CNEWS Canada has published a story about the debate within the Ford administration over government use of secret wiretaps.

In 1976, Cheney and Rumsfeld were arguing that they were needed.

In 1978, Congress thought it ended the debate by passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Some people just won't take "No" for an answer.

Today, after the current administration has engaged in unauthorized wiretapping, the Attorney General will speak to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his rationale for claiming their legality.

Abramoff, Evangelicals, & Casino Money

The Nation Magazine has posted an interesting article by Max Blumenthal on "Abramoff's Evangelical Soldiers."

Blumenthal provides revealing information about how Abramoff used Ralph Reed:

Reed thus became Abramoff and Scanlon's liaison to the Christian right, enlisting his evangelical allies into a web of shadowy casino hustles for "chump change."

As Blumenthal documents, some of America's most prominent evangelicals became "chumps" for Reed and Abramoff.

Confirmation of the Downing Street Memo, and Worse

Editor & Publisher has posted information about news that is breaking in Britain that confirms revelations in the Downing Street Memo. The information also outlines plotting between President Bush and British Prime Minister Blair on how best to incite a war with Iraq.

Revelations like this are becoming so commonplace that Americans are beginning to yawn at evidence of illegal and corrupt practices in high places.

Sooner or later, -- undoubtedly when they finally realize that Jesus is not going rapture them from the great tribulations they are watching unfold -- a majority of the sleepwalkers in America are going to wake up to the reality that policies they have ignored or supported are making life a nightmare for generations to come.

Problems with Baptist Communitarianism

In their response to Bill Underwood, our Baptist communitarians wrote:

We believe with early Baptists and the mainstream Christian tradition that an individual's conscience is inviolable, but not infallible, and therefore we are always under the obligation to see to it that our consciences have been formed by the faithful practices of the church.

Their response begs the question: How do you decide what is accepted as "the faithful practices of the church?" By this criterion, it is hard to comprehend how a people who call themselves Baptists could exist. Baptists were born of a conscientious objection to the long tradition and "faithful practice" of baptising infants. For more than a millenium all of the "spiritual masters" of the church taught the practice.

The communitarians write:

While we reject the authoritarian subjugation of individual conscience, there is a sense in which we do believe in being subject to "spiritual masters" -- but not self-appointed ones.

That we "self-appointed" our "spiritual masters" is a charge that has been levelled against both Anabaptists and Baptists for centuries (Where did John Smyth get the authority to baptise those first English Baptists?). Except for communitarians and Southern Baptists since 1979, most Baptists have not been advocates for apostolic successions and church hierarchies.

The same quotations demonstrate the communitarian's hostility to liberty of conscience. First, they exaggerate the claims of conscience. I know of no Baptists who claim "infallibility" for their conscience. I know many Baptists who acknowledge the authority of conscience under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Second, they couple the pejorative "subjugation" with conscience when speaking about its authority. Most Baptists don't view the guidance of the Holy Spirit as "subjugation."

There's a lot more with which to quibble, but that should be enough for now. Also, I'm turning the comments section on again and I'll try to make time to respond to comments.

Baptist Communitarians Respond to Underwood

Associated Baptist Press has reported that the authors of the "Baptist Manifesto" have responded to criticisms of their theology made by Mercer President-elect Bill Underwood in a speech he gave a couple weeks ago.

I have long been on Underwood's side of this debate. Below is a re-post of a blog about the "Baptist Manifesto" that I first posted on 7/9/04. I'll respond to the current discussion in another blog. [Note: the version of the "Manifesto" that is online is a later modification of the version to which I was responding in 1996.]

My experience with the "Baptist Manifesto" dates back to the fall of 1996 when Dr. Freeman, then professor at Houston Baptist University, asked me if I would like to add my signature to the document. After a lively phone conversation in which I expressed my concerns about aspects of the Manifesto, I wrote Dr. Freeman a letter documenting those concerns. A few weeks later I was invited to attend a conference at Baylor University on the Manifesto. I attended the conference expecting to hear some thoughtful review and critique of the document, instead, literally all of the presentations were given by proponents of the document and little time was given to permit questions about it (Remember this as you read the statement in the Manifesto that says, "When all exercise their gifts and callings, when every voice is heard and weighed, when no one is silenced or privileged, the Spirit leads communities to read wisely and to practice faithfully the direction of the gospel.")

Weary of the task of criticism, I decided to offer some constructive alternatives. My first brief attempt was in a devotional entitled "The Baptist Distinctive of Personal Integrity" given at a meeting of the coordinating council of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. A little longer attempt was in a statement called "Reaffirming Baptist Identity" that was printed along with the Baptist Manifesto in the June 25, 1997 issue of Baptists Today.

The most thorough assessment of the Manifesto, of which I am aware, is a paper called "The Baptist Identity and the Baptist Manifesto" written by Dr. Walter Shurden.

Ask the NSA

Capitol Hill Blue has published a story revealing that "Key White House Records in Plame Probe Disappear."

It appears that incompetencies within government systems as well as errors in implementing procedures keep working together for the convenience of members of a secret cabal within this administration. This time, e-mails for a certain time in 2003 -- a time crucial to the investigation of the Plame leak -- were not archived.

This reminds me of a certain 18 minute gap on the tapes of the Nixon Whitehouse.

The solution, I think, is obvious. The National Security Agency must have records of all the e-mail and other communications that came and went from the White House at that time. The President admits to authorizing the agency to indiscriminately monitor and archive every domestic source of communications that contacted people overseas.

Outing a covert CIA operative is a crime that is tantamount to treason. It certainly is a matter of National Security which is the primary mission of the NSA. Perhaps the prosecutor investigating the outing of Valerie Plame and the lawyers for Scooter Libby's defense should send their subpoena's to the NSA.

On the Purity of Messages and Messengers

The debate over the casting of a gay actor in the movie "The End of the Spear" has spilled over to the pages of the New York Times.

The movie is based on the true story of five American missionaries who gave their lives in 1956 trying to witness to an indigenous tribe in Ecuador. When the movie was first released, Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, KY criticized movie makers for casting a gay actor in the lead role.

The New York Times quotes Jason Janz, Assistant Pastor of Red Rocks Baptist Church in Denver, as saying "we must realize that the Christian message and the messenger are intricately related." It also quotes film director Jim Hanlon as saying, "If we start measuring the sin of everyone in a movie, we would never be able to make a picture because none of us would be left."

I agree with Hanlon.

This entire controversy is based on a premise within certain evangelical circles that homosexuals do not enjoy equal rights in our society.

If anyone were to suggest that evangelical Christians should not be cast in acting roles portraying non-evangelical Christians, these same evangelical Christians would be screaming loud and long about how they were being attacked and denied their civil rights.

Technorati Tags Religion, Chad Allen, Civil Rights, Homosexuality, Al Mohler, Jason Janz, Jim Hanlon, End of the Spear

Blogger May Prevail Over IMB Trustees

In what could prove to be a stunning success for the blogosphere, Oklahoma blogger Wade Burleson may succeed in getting the trustees at the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board to rescind their recommendation that he be removed from their board.

Ethics Daily is reporting that Burleson had a meeting with the chair and vice chair of the board of trustees for the IMB and left predicting that their recommendation for his removal will be rescinded.

Removing a trustee from a board or agency of the SBC requires 75% of the votes at a meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. In the entire history of the SBC no trustee has ever been removed by action of the Convention on recommendation of a board of trustees.

If Burleson's prediction proves true, it indicates that principled dissent in the SBC remains possible so long as you can get yourself elected to a position on a board of trustees, write blogs, and threaten to organize a movement that might secure 25% of the votes at an SBC Convention.

Unanswered Questions About 9/11

An editorial in today's Miami Herald accuses the government and the American public of "Avoiding the Hard Questions" about 9/11.

On the internet, a lot of questions have been raised by scientific experts and other credible sources concerning the incredible discrepancies and inconsistencies in official accounts of what happened on 9/11/2001. In the mainstream media, however, very little has been said.

Today's editorial indicates that the log jam on this story may be about to break. The Miami Herald is one of the first mainstream media sources that I've seen accentuate the fact that three towers, not two, fell to the ground that day. Outside of New York City, I doubt that many people are aware of that fact.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to wonder whether the official explanations for the implosion of a third steel framed buildng -- uncompromised by any direct collision by an airplane -- seem implausible.

As the Miami Herald notes, many of the unanswered questions about 9/11 are being raised by an organization called "Scholars for 9/11 Truth."

On Stifling Dissent

Common Dreams has posted Cindy Sheehan's version about what happened when she was arrest at the State of the Union address last night.

It's getting harder and harder to give any expression of dissent in the presence of this President.

Sooner or later, he's going to have to face his critics.

Podcast: Interview with Muhammed Cetin

Dr. Bruce Prescott's 1-29-06 "Religous Talk" radio interview with Muhammed Cetin, Visiting Scholar at the University of Houston and President of the Institute for Interfaith Dialog.

We talk about the work of the Institute for Interfaith Dialog, Muslim-Christian relations, and the trips to Turkey that he leads for IID.

The picture, taken on December 30, 2006, is of Muhammed Cetin standing on what is left of the floor of a Roman sauna at Perge, Turkey. He is explaining their heating system.

Marlette to Work with the Tulsa World

Doug Marlette, pulitizer prize winning cartoonist, creator of the Kudzu and Rev. Will B. Done comic strips, and author of the novel The Bridge, started teaching at the University of Oklahoma this spring. My son, a graduate student in professional writing at OU, is his Teaching Assistant.

Editor and Publisher has just announced that Marlette will become political cartoonist for the Tulsa World on Feb. 12th.

How to Win Debates

The February 6, 2006 issue of Newsweek has published a story about Jerry Falwell's Liberty University debate team. It discusses how evangelicals are mastering the art of college debate to prepare themselves for legal careers in front of our new right-wing Supreme Court.

I suspect we will be reading a lot more stories like this and looking at pictures of a lot more smirking fundamentalist debaters and lawyers over the next couple decades.

Why shouldn't they smirk? When you argue about the first amendment representing the majoritarian faith and know that the five out of nine judges are already biased against equal rights for minority faiths, it's going to be hard to lose.

Technorati Tags Religion, Politics, church and state, Samuel Alito, Supreme Court, Jerry Falwell, Liberty University, debate

Military May Be Covering Up Sexual Assaults of Female Soldiers

Truthout has reported about testimony from Col. Janis Karpiniski that indicates that the military has been covering up evidence of sexual assaults of female soldiers in Iraq. Here's a quote:

In a startling revelation, the former commander of Abu Ghraib prison testified that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former senior US military commander in Iraq, gave orders to cover up the cause of death for some female American soldiers serving in Iraq.

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity About Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.

The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn't located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom. "There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night," Karpinski told retired US Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview. It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers. So the women took matters into their own hands. They didn't drink in the late afternoon so they wouldn't have to urinate at night. They didn't get raped. But some died of dehydration in the desert heat, Karpinski said.

Alito and the Federalist Society

Today's New York Times has an insightful story about the role of the Federalist Society in paving the way for the approval of jurists like Chief Justice John Roberts and Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. It is entitled, "In Alito, G.O.P. Reaps Harvest Planted in '82." Here's a quote:

Alito's confirmation is also the culmination of a disciplined campaign begun by the Reagan administration to seed the lower federal judiciary with like-minded jurists who could reorient the federal courts toward a view of the Constitution much closer to its 18th-century authors' intent, including a much less expansive view of its application to individual rights and federal power. It was a philosophy promulgated by Edwin Meese III, attorney general in the Reagan administration, that became the gospel of the Federalist Society and the nascent conservative legal movement.

Both Mr. Roberts and Mr. Alito were among the cadre of young conservative lawyers attracted to the Reagan administration's Justice Department. And both advanced to the pool of promising young jurists whom strategists like C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel in the first Bush administration and an adviser to the current White House, sought to place throughout the federal judiciary to groom for the highest court.

Administration Trying to Muzzle NASA Climatologist

The New York Times has published a story about how this administration has tried to muzzle James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist.

Hansen has been issuing warnings about the linkage between greenhouse emissions and global warming. He thinks reductions are urgently needed.

Some of the President's advisors may believe that the imminence of the second advent makes concern for the environment unnecessary.

Reviving the Dark Ages

Another day, another scandal from the America's "values voters" administration. If you're keeping score, they've already given us the largest scandals in voter disenfranchisement, corporate malfeasance, Presidential mendacity, pre-emptive warfare, torture and abuse of detainees, illegal wiretapping, and Congressional corruption in American history.

The latest scandal involves allegations that the U.S. Army in Iraq may be trying to force suspects to surrender by incarcerating their wives.

What neo-conservatives bill as a great "clash of civilizations" is a farce. The morality and activity of this administration is uncivilized.

That most evangelicals remain loyal to this President and his "I don't give a hoot what you think attitude" demonstrates their own incivility to the entire world. I just wish this unconscionable witness and testimony was not also destroying the credibility of the gospel and of the Christian faith before that same world.

Evangelical involvement in politics has not led to another "Great Awakening," it has brought a revival of the "Dark Ages."

If Prophets Gave State of the Union Addresses

Ethics Daily has posted a superb essay about "Reading the Bible While Listening to the State of the Union." There's already a lot of hype and spin and handwringing about the President's State of the Union address. Nothing is likely to be said or written, before or after the address is given, that is as insightful and prophetic as what Robert Parham has written.

Parham asks, "If a biblical prophet gave the 2006 State of the Union address, what would the message be?" Among a host of other things, this is what Parham says:

Another prophet, Amos, could condemn self-righteous Republicans for pandering to the religious right and pretending that GOP stands for God's Only Party. He would condemn the Republicans who utter pious prayers on public street corners. He would blast the Justice Sunday crowd for their worship services that mix ideological agendas with diluted religion.

Speaking for God,Amos would repeat one of his most famous lines: "I hate, I despise your feasts and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them."

Amos would then turn to the grinning Democrats with a blistering warning against playing at religion. He would warn them that peppering speeches with religious talk doesn't make them religious. He would speak against watering down religion for the sake of finding a common denominator with the nonreligious.

Without a teleprompter and rehearsed applause lines, Amos would tell the White House and Congress that God expects them to stop trampling on the poor in order to build expensive homes, to stop taking bribes in the form of golf trips,to stop rigging the system to enrich their friends and to stop turning justice into wormwood.

Parham does leave one thing understated.

If one like Amos were to speak today about the State of our Union, who would be listening?

Podcast: How Enron Buried Bill Peterson

The criminal trials of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling for their roles in the Enron scandal are about to begin. The New York Times published an article today about how a "Big Test Looms for Prosecutors at Enron Trial." It will certainly test our system of justice to see if it has the means to convict people who can afford to pay a $21 million dollar retainer fee for their defense. For more details see the documentary "Enron -- The Smartest Guys in the Room."

To get a feel for the human toll caused by this corporate scandal, you might listen to the podcasts of my "Religious Talk" radio interviews with Cathy Peterson. Cathy was my secretary for a number of years while I pastored a church in Houston. Her husband, Bill, was a Lotus Notes Administrator who kept e-mail working for the global empire that Enron built.

Shortly before Enron imploded, Bill was diagnosed with cancer. He was already being treated when Ken Lay advised employees, worried about the steep decline in value of Enron stock after Skilling's departure, that the company was sound. Bill was in the early rounds of chemo-therapy when the company went bankrupt and terminated his health insurance.

Cathy recounts how faith sustained her as she coped with the loss of their home, automobiles and worldly possessions as they faced Bill's losing struggle with cancer in her 2003 book "Flashlight Walking." In the book she speaks of her, so far, futile attempts to find a congressperson who will sponsor legislation (a "Peterson law") that would prohibit companies, whether solvent or bankrupt, from terminating health benefits for people undergoing treatment for illnesses like cancer.

Recently she wrote a guide for helping others through grief and tragedy called "Call Me If You Need Anything . . . and Other Things NOT to Say."

Podcasts: "Flashlight Walking" interview (Part One) and (Part Two). "Things NOT to Say" interview (One Part)

Addition: I just learned that Cathy Peterson was interviewed for an article that appeared in the Dallas Morning News Monday. Here's a link.

Matching Words and Actions

Yesterday Americans United has issued a press release criticizing the Senate Judiciary Committee for approving the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Americans United, the Baptist Joint Committee and other groups are concerned about what Alito's nomination will do to the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.

Today, remarkably coincident with the debate in the U.S. Senate over whether to affirm a fifth Roman Catholic to this country's Supreme Court, the Pope issued an encyclical denouncing theocracy.

Jonathan Hutson and others at Talk to Action are encouraged by the Pope's encyclical.

Knowing the way this pope treated Hans Kung and other progressive voices within the Roman Catholic Church before he became Pope, I'm a bit more skeptical. I think I'll reserve judgment until we've had more time to see if this Pope's actions match his words.

One mark in his favor is that he has met with Kung since becoming pope.

Technorati Tags Religion, Politics, church and state, Samuel Alito, Supreme Court, Americans United, Pope, Papal Encyclical

His Nets in the News

Ethics Daily has published a story about His Nets, a ministry that strives to reduce the threat of malaria by distributing insecticide treated mosquito nets.

Recent news stories about a $280.00 wristwatch that detects malaria, about the need for more "bed nets" instead of advisors, and warnings that malarial drugs may be losing their effectiveness -- all this recent news can be used to demonstrate the importance and cost effectiveness of this ministry.

I can also vouch for the integrity of those who administrate this ministry. His Nets is a ministry of my good friend and colleague T Thomas and his daughter Andi.

Twenty-Somethings and Bush

Recently I saw a Zogby poll that said 74% of 18-29 year-olds already favor impeaching President Bush for breaking wiretap laws.

If the President was interested in improving his position among younger people, he missed an opportunity yesterday. Yesterday Tiffany Cooper, a sophmore at Kansas State, asked the President how cutting $12.7 billion from the student loan program was supposed to help students prepare for the future? Bush responded that he was really reforming the program, not cutting money out of it.

Every student being denied a student loan and every student trying to pay off student loans lent at high interest rates will be reminded of that lie. This is a lie that will generate resentment long into the future.

AU Urges Alito's Rejection

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court on the grounds that his record suggests he lacks respect for church-state separation. Here's a quote from Executive Director Barry Lynn:

"Judge Alito has given broad license to religious majorities to use the public schools and other official settings to broadcast their religious messages without regard for the competing rights and interests of religious minorities," Lynn argued.

Podcast: OU Students Discuss IID Turkey Trip

Dr. Bruce Prescott's 1-22-06 "Religous Talk" radio interview with four Religious Studies majors at the University of Oklahoma discussing a recent trip to Turkey that was sponsored by the Institute for Interfaith Dialog.

My guests are Barbara Schwartz-Brus, Cole Stephenson, Heather Stephenson, and Shereen Zaid. Part One introduces the guests, touches on the depth and diversity of the OU Religious Studies Program, introduces the work of the Institute for Interfaith Dialog, and highlights some of the most memorable moments of the trip. Part Two discusses the most challenging moments of the trip for the students and asks them to wrestle with the question whether it is fair to judge this Near Eastern country by Western standards.

The picture, taken on 1-3-06 at the Castle of Urfa, is of Heather Stephenson and a local Turkish girl named Dicem.

Military Options and Iran

Tom Paine has posted an eye opening article that discusses Richard Clarke's understanding of our military options with Iran. Clarke was formerly this country's "Terrorism Czar" and served under four successive administrations beginning with that of Reagan. Here's a quote:

The rationale for diplomatic de-escalation and not unilateral military action was Clarke's other point. In a nutshell, Iran has the ability already to make America pay for such a move. Iran, in Clarke's view, has thoroughly infiltrated southern Iraq with intelligence and military personnel. Should the U.S. or Israel drop one bomb on the Bushehr nuclear facility, says Clarke, these forces in Iraq have the capability to make the current insurgency look like child's play, implying that Iran can trigger the Iraqi civil war we've been fearing. Not only that, Iran has the capability to virtually shut down the flow of energy (oil and gas) from the Persian Gulf. Finally, Iran could quite quickly turn up the heat in Afghanistan, where it holds considerable influence with warlords Washington needs to maintain stability. Any of these moves would be an extremely effective check on American military action.

Clarke's conclusion was that use of military force was not an option with Iran. Clarke, however, resigned from his government post after 9/11 and blew the whistle on how this administration ignored intelligence about Al Queda planning a strike in the U.S. before 9/11.

This administration has a history of ignoring the interpretation of intelligence that Clarke advises.

Say it Again, Molly

Molly Ivins' essay on "I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President" deserves an encore.

What's a Gay-Dar?

Howie Luvzus has posted an entertaining blog and about Al Mohler's complaint over casting Chad Allen, a gay activist, in the lead role of the movie The End of the Spear. The movie is about missionaries who gave their lives trying to witness to natives in the jungles of Ecuador.

Along with his blog Howie posted a Gay-Dar, but What's a Gay-Dar, Howie?

After a google search, I discovered that it is slang for "Gay Radar" from this post at Wikipedia.

Podcast: Hollyn Hollman Interview

Dr. Bruce Prescott's 1-15-06 "Religous Talk" radio interview with Hollyn Hollman, General Counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

We discuss the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito and the implications of his judicial record for church/state issues.

The President and the Constitution

Today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an outstanding editorial about "The President's growing disregard for the law." It discusses Bush's use of "Presidential signing statements" to signal that he and his administration have no intention of abiding by or enforcing the law that he is signing.

Both the Senate and the House overwhelming passed the McCain bill banning the torture of prisoners under American custody. "Presidential signing statements" notwithstanding, it does apply to this administration and this president.

Either that, or we need to stop pretending that this country is still governed by the rule of law.

On Ineptitude

The Washington Post has a revealing article about Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff. Here's a quote:

"This is really a very inept administration," says Wilkerson, who has credentials not only as an insider in the Bush I, Clinton and Bush II presidencies but also as a former professor at two of the nation's war colleges. "As a teacher who's studied every administration since 1945, I think this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership I've seen in 50-plus years. You've got to go back and think about that. That includes the Bay of Pigs, that includes -- oh my God, Vietnam. That includes Iran-contra, Watergate."

Our President

Thanks to Max Blumenthal for posting a truly memorable picture of our president.

One Baptists' History

Howie Luvzus has posted a very interesting blog entitled "My History with Southern Baptists." Similar stories about the "back row" students at our seminaries could be told by literally thousands of other Southern Baptists. Here's a quote:

When the new BF & M came around, I talked openly with several others teaching at the institution who were Calvinists. I asked them about the statement on original sin. They disagreed with it, but signed it anyway. I had other problems with the document so I couldn't sign it. Now, I'm the heretic! They're just liars, but they have jobs! God Bless em'! Many other events happened there, but I don't wish to hurt anyone that I love. Several of the profs that retired or asked to leave were my friends. They loved the Bible as much as any one I know. I heard all sorts of things said about them behind their backs. I worked at the seminary motel and would constantly have to "straighten out" some of the slanderous things the "extension students" would say about the profs. It was sickening.

Howie explains the toxic environment of the SBC well. It's probably healthier to take your chances with the environmental toxicity of post-Katrina New Orleans, than to endanger your spiritual health in the current atmosphere of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Proof that State Department Knew of "Yellow Cake" Uranium Forgery

Months before President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address cited intelligence about Iraq's acquisition of "yellow cake" uranium to justify going to war with Iraq, there were credible and convincing reports on the internet about how this "yellow cake" uranium intelligence was a forgery. I read some of them long before the 2003 State of the Union address.

Today's New York Times has an article about a 2002 State Department intelligence assessment that concluded that the intelligence about "yellow cake" uranium was "unlikely" to be reliable.

Denials that intelligence was "fixed" to go to war with Iraq are losing credibility with all but the most loyal supporters of the Bush administration.

On Knowing the Wrath of God

Robert Parham speaks for a lot of us who are fed up with all the pious pontificators who presume to know that the wrath of God is being revealed by disasters. Here's a quote from today's Ethics Daily:

"Blaming God for natural disasters, diseases and destruction is far too popular in American culture, and especially within faith circles," said Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics.

Parham said Christians "would do well to remember the words of Jesus, who taught us two things about judgment in the Sermon on the Mount."

In the New International Version of Matthew 5:45, Jesus says that God "causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous," suggesting that weather-related phenomena are unconnected to morality.

Matthew 7:26 describes a man who built his house on sand, where it was unable to sustain storms, instead of a rock. The man in the parable "brought judgment on himself for his foolishness," Parham said. Likewise, failed levees blamed for much of the destruction in New Orleans were caused by human failure, not God.

On the Right's Unblushing Hypocrisy

E. J. Dionne wrote an insightful editorial about the "unblushing hypocrisy" of the Right's smear tactics on its critics.

Having witnessed twenty-five years of the same "unblushing hypocrisy" among the fundamentalist preachers who took over the Southern Baptist Convention, I'm not surprised to see it practiced is secular politics.

What does surprise me is the deliberate credulity and willful myopia of the people who listen to their smears. Like the latest victim of the fundamentalist smear machine, they are often much more concerned with being perceived as "conservative" than as being "Christian."

On Baptists Blogging for Democracy

Ethics Daily has posted an insightful aricle by Brian Kaylor entitled Baptist Bloggers and Democracy that discusses the flap at the SBC's International Mission Board over trustee Wade Burleson's blogging.

Burleson is the latest in a long line of Baptist whistleblowers who have tried to expose the underhanded methods of SBC fundamentalists.

Whistleblowers are necessary for democracy to correct abuses of power. They are rarely recieved favorably, but when whistleblowers are completely silenced tyranny replaces democracy.

The SBC has been ruled by tyranny for two and a half decades. It's doubtful that Burleson wields a big enough whistle to put an end to it, but perhaps he'll mark the beginning of a new wave of resistance to the reign of spiritual terror that envelops the Southern Baptist Convention.

Al Gore on Saving the Constitution

Common Dreams has posted the text of Al Gore's speech "'We the People' Must Save Our Constitution." Gore believes President Bush's actions threaten the foundations of our democracy and has called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate unauthorized wiretapping of American citizens by the National Security Administration.

I gave a speech about Christians who believe that "Democracy is Heresy" to a group of prominent business and civic leaders in Oklahoma City last week. The reaction I received from some of them convinced me that there is little concern for democracy among some of the elites in our society. Their disdain for liberalism is greater than any conceivable threat that could be posed to democracy from the theocratic right.

I suspect that these same elites will discount anything that Gore says. America needs a conservative of conviction and integrity to issue a call to defend the constitution. We have a lot of conservatives with conviction and a few who have integrity, but none, so far, who have been willing to rise to the defense of the constitution.

In my view, nothing demonstrates the bankruptcy of conservative thought in America more than it's willingness to achieve its goals by sacrificing the constitutional "checks and balances" that undergird our system of law.

Unraveling Christopher Columbus

Nearly thrity years ago Peter Marshall wrote a book of fairy tales about America's "Christian" history entitled The Light and the Glory. It has been a popular book in evangelical circles ever since.

Marshall's book begins with a paean to God's "Christ-bearer" Christopher Columbus. In Marshall's eyes Columbus was God's Ambassador to the New World.

In reality, Spanish scientists are now conducting DNA tests to discover whether Columbus was in fact a Catalan pirate who concealed his identity to further his nautical ambitions.

The genuine historical material that I have read about Columbus indicates that his character was much nearer to that of a pirate than of a "Christ-bearer."

Welcoming Emily

Emily Snively made her long awaited debute on January 6th. Weighing in at 7 lbs. 6 oz. and stretching out to 18 1/2 inches, she is the pride and joy of parents Todd and Tammy Snively of McKinney, Texas. Mom and Dad tried to match her exuberant smile, but, as evidenced by the picture below, their efforts left Emily feeling more than a bit disappointed.

Grand Aunt Kylene and Grand Uncle Bruce will try to restore Emily's humor when we get an opportunity to pay her a visit.

Ed Young's College

Doug Hodo, president of Houston Baptist University, a school affiliated with the fundamentalist breakaway convention Southern Baptists of Texas, has announced his retirement.

The Baptist Standard identifies five of the nine members of the board that will search for a new president as members of Second Baptist Church in Houston.

Why don't they just call the school Ed Young's College?

Challenge to Bush's Faith-Based Initiative Approved

The 7th Circuit of Appeals in Chicago has approved a challenge to Bush's Faith-Based Initiative by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Here's a link to a story in the Chicago Sun Times.

Blog from the Capital has more details.

Bill in South Carolina would Mandate Prayer at Citadel

Thanks to the Religion Clause blog for calling attention to the ABC News report about a bill that is being introduced in the South Carolina legislature that would mandate prayers before meals at the Citadel, a military chapel.

It looks like some people are eager to give Roberts and Alito an opportunity to make government sponsored compulsory religious exercises legal.

Streak on Being Tired

I'm catching up on what my favorite bloggers have been saying.

Brad Raley at Streak's blog wrote a blog entitled "I guess I am just tired" that resonated with whatever fiber there is in my being. Here's are a couple quotes:

Very few things make me [lose] respect the conservative church more than things like Justice Sunday III. I am just tired of them. Tired of the constant lament that Christianity is under attack when it isn't.

. . .

Tired of people who can organize a public outing to support Alito but can't seem to speak out on torture, poverty, Tom Delay, or Pat Robertson.

The High Price of Religious Privilege

Kudos to Bruce Gourley for his essay, "In Response to . . . Franklin Graham on Separation of Church and State". Gourley examines the role that privileges extended to church and clergy have played in undermining the principle of church-state separation. Here's a quote:

John Leland understood that an attitude of expected favoritism from the state, in any form, trivializes the gospel and cheapens the Church. Yet one could argue that virtually all contemporary Baptists (and most Christians) in America today expect some form of favoritism from the government by virtue of their faith, whether it be government enforcement of a particular brand of morality, the teaching of certain religious views in our nation's schools, the public display of a portion of our faith's sacred text, or an exemption from taxes for clergy and church.

On Alito's Confirmation

The Baptist Joint Committee has posted an evaluation by Hollyn Hollman of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's record on church-state issues. Americans United also has an extensive report reviewing his church-state record.

Don Byrd at Blog from the Capital has been doing a good job of posting updates from Alito's confirmation hearings on issues related to church-state separation.

Most of the questioning during the hearings have focused on Alito's views on abortion. It looks like Alito will be easily confirmed.

The future of the principle of church-state separation in this nation will soon rest in the hands of a new mix of justices.

AU Sues School Over Elective Intelligent Design Class

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has filed suit against a California school district that is offering an elective course in philosophy on "Intelligent Design" in a public high school.

I think it may be possible to structure a constitutionally permissible philosophy or comparative religion course that could discuss "Intelligent Design" along with other religious and philosophical explanations of creation and origins. The class at Frazier Mountain High School in Lebec, California, however, appears to be structured to present a single religious perspective.

Public schools have no business endorsing or promoting any religious perspective.

Blogger Being Booted from SBC Mission Board

Wade Burleson, author of the Grace and Truth blog and pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Oklahoma is being booted off of the Executive Board of the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board.

Burleson has been blogging about maneuverings within the board to replace IMB President Jerry Rankin. Evidently his blogging upset enough board members that they want to remove him from the board.

Burleson insists that his blogs were posted as a matter of conscience and personal integrity. He distinguishes between "crusading conservatives" and "cooperating conservatives" and laments that the crusaders are now ostracizing the cooperators. He hopes his blogging will encourage other "cooperating conservatives" to stand up to the crusaders before support for the SBC is completely destroyed.

Burleson's experience is evidence that another round of purges is taking place within the SBC. From my perspective, it is hard to understand why Burleson's conscience did not start bothering him when scores of faithful missionaries were being fired for refusing to sign the 2000 BF&M.

My advice to Burleson and anyone else trying to work within the SBC is to decide that you would rather that Southern Baptists be identified as "Christian" than as "conservative." There's nothing Christ-like about the incessant purges that have taken place in the SBC over the last twenty-five years. No matter how conservative the values being defended, conscientious dissent from the policies of authoritarian leaders will never be accepted as "conservative."

The purges will continue as long as Southern Baptists keep competing with each other for the title "conservative."

Melissa Rogers Critiques Justice Sunday III

Melissa Rogers, visiting professor of religion and public policy at Wake Forest University, has written an outstanding critique of Justice Sunday III under the title Religious Freedom for All. Melissa formerly served as General Counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee and as Executive Director of Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Here's an excerpt from Melissa's critique:

The rhetoric and advocacy positions of the Family Research Council and its partners reveal that they want the court to go far beyond rulings like these [the Texas ten commandments decision]. For example, they want to reintroduce school-sponsored prayer in a variety of settings and ensure that the government has wide latitude to erect religious monuments and otherwise endorse religion. They express a broad desire to use the machinery of the state to promote their faith.

Understandably, many non-Christians are alarmed by this agenda. As a Baptist Christian, I am alarmed as well. All people should be free from governmental pressure on matters of faith. We should exercise the great freedom we have to practice our faith, but we should not ask the government to advance religion for us. Indeed, when the government promotes faith, it inevitably uses religion for its own ends, which warps religion and weakens its spiritual force. As Baptist preacher John Leland said in 1804: "Experience, the best teacher, has informed us that the fondness of magistrates to foster Christianity has done it more harm than all the persecutions ever did."

While its rulings on these issues have not been perfect, the Supreme Court deserves great credit for striking the right balance. It's a balance Christians should seek to preserve rather than undo.

As Judge Alito's confirmation hearings continue, senators should expose false claims about First Amendment interpretation and judicial motivations. They also should seek to determine whether Alito would uphold the general ban on government-endorsed religion or whether he would drive constitutional interpretation in the direction favored by the Family Research Council.

Stossel Manufacturing Another Crisis in Education

Since the 1980's TV reporters and other researchers have been comparing the academic performance of American students with that of students in other developed countries and declaring that our public schools are failing.

Their shallow research receives much wider dissemination than it deserves because it serves the political purposes of people who have been trying to dismantle public schools since the day they were integrated.

Ethics Daily reports that ABC's John Stossel will have a report critical of "government schools" that will air on 20/20 Friday evening. I suspect that it will add yet another chapter to an ongoing saga of cheap attacks on the underpaid professionals who devote their lives to teaching children in America's underfunded public schools.

Thorough researchers take note of the full demographic information regarding the student population in all the countries that are being compared. When test results for only the best and brightest in other countries are compared with the test results for the entire student population in the U.S. it is easy to give an impression that American schools are falling behind.

For reliable research on public school performance, I look to Dr. David Berliner, professor of Education at the University of Arizona. His book, The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud and the Attack on America's Public Schools, is the best single source for information about the successes and failures of America's system of public education. Here's a link to an online archive of some of his essays, Op-Eds, and papers. I suspect he will write a review and critique of Stossel's report shortly after it is broadcast.

To listen to a podcast of a "Religious Talk" radio interview with Dr. Berliner, here's a link to the first half-hour, and here's a link to the second half-hour of my interview with him.

Technorati Tags Education, John Stossel, Politics, David Berliner

Is War with Iran Imminent?

William Rivers Pitt has an alarming essay entitled "Attack on Iran: A Looming Folly" that is posted on the Truthout website. Pitt examines the political, economic and military ramifications of such an action.

Pitt, however, is most certainly wrong about the U.S. launching a first strike on Iran. Yesterday, the U.K. Herald reported that Israel is making plans to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. The frightening scenario that Pitt describes could easily follow from our defending Israel after a retaliatory counterstrike by Iran on Israel.

Blue Mosque Pictures

Here are a couple pictures of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey. The pictures were taken on January 4, 2006.

Whatever Became of Bill Gothard?

In the 1970's Bill Gothard led "Basic Youth Conflicts" seminars all over the country in which he proclaimed the virtues of the patriarchal chain of command family structure.

In the 1980's he slipped from the evangelical circuit's limelight.

Silja Tavli has written an essay entitled "Cult of Character" published in In These Times that reveals some of what Gothard has been doing lately.

I did a little research on Gothard's Character Training Institute a couple years ago when I stumbled on information about a local city becoming one of his "character cities." I haven't had time to do any research in depth. My initial impression is that Gothard has found a way to make a handsome living repackaging his old "Character Sketch" material and selling it to public schools and city governments. All he did to give it a secular appearance was to remove the bible quotes and biblical citations.

Hagia Sophia Pictures

Here are a couple pictures from the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey (formerly Constantinople). The pictures were taken on January 4, 2006.

Foy Valentine Has Died

The saddest news I received when I returned from my trip to Turkey was hearing that Foy Valentine had died. Associated Baptist Press and Ethics Daily have posted stories about his sudden demise.

Foy was a friend to every Baptist that had a social conscience. His efforts to educate and involve Southern Baptistgs in the struggle for civil rights during the 1960's are his most enduring legacy. Few people have had such a profoundly good influence on Southern Baptists.

God and Fertility

Stories about a dangerous lack of fertility are becoming common in the conservative press.

Recently, Southern Baptists have become increasingly vocal about the need for biological reproduction.

Today, an article in USA Today links the "death of God" and empty European churches with a warning that Europe is slowly depopulating itself.

It is hard for me to comprehend why low rates of biological reproduction should be of concern to Christians. From the beginning, Christianity was a missionary religion. It is spread by the proclamation of the Word, not by insemination.

A University is a Terrible Thing to Waste

I'm back from Turkey today.

This is a picture of the ruins of the world's first university. We visited this site at Haran near modern Urfa (ancient Ur -- the childhood home of Abraham) on January 2nd.

Live from Istanbul Turkey

I can't manage to get a picture uploaded.

The Interfaith Dialogue group is in Istanbul today. We visited the Hagia Sopia and the Blue Mosque.

Live from Ankara Turkey

I'm with a group from the Institute for Interfaith Dialogue visiting Turkey. We are stranded at the airport waiting for another flight after our flight Diyarbakir was cancelled due to fog.

The picture is from the ruins at Perge which we visited on December 31st.


To see the blogs related to my essay on "Redeemoing Copnversation" scroll down to Dec. 23rd -- the date that I put them on the blog in draft form. Another new blog will be posted each day, but will appear under the Dec. 23 date.

Indoctrination (Part 4 of 10)

Indoctrination is talk that closes the mind. Indoctrinators speak with unquestioned certainty and unshakable conviction. They believe they possess the truth. They transmit a formula for faith, a uniform way of viewing the world, and a standard form of speech and expression to their pupils. Questioning the formula is not permitted, perceiving different points of view is not tolerated, and deviating from the standard form of speech and expression is not welcome.
This form of speech reduces trust to the small group of the indoctrinated. Suspicion of others can be so intense that adherents often feel threatened by any friendly and open conversation with those who do not accept their doctrine.

Indoctrination is the Sanhedrin commanding Peter and John "not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus."" (Acts 4:1-22)

For previous parts please see postings for Dec. 23rd.